The Chinaberry Tree by Jessie Redmon Fauset

First published: 1931

The Work

The Chinaberry Tree, Jessie Redmon Fauset’s third novel, is her attempt to illustrate that “to be a Negro in America posits a dramatic situation.” Believing that fate plays an important role in the lives of blacks and whites, Fauset depicts the domestic lives of African Americans who are not struggling with the harsh realities of day-to-day existence.

The Chinaberry Tree relates the story of two cousins, Laurentine Strange and Melissa Paul. Because Laurentine is the product of an illicit romantic relationship between a former slave and her master, Laurentine accepts the community’s opinion that she has “bad blood.” Rejection from a male suitor reinforces her feelings of inadequacy and propels her to further isolation from the community. The young Melissa, although the daughter of an adulterous relationship between Judy Strange and Sylvester Forten, believes herself superior. Sent to Red Brook to live with her relatives, Melissa meets and falls in love with Malory Forten, who, unknown to her, is her half brother. The “drama” of the novel is the exploration of both women’s responses to being innocent victims of fate. Laurentine overcomes her feelings of inadequacy, and Melissa learns that she too is a product of “bad blood.”

The Chinaberry Tree is also Fauset’s attempt to prove that African Americans are not so vastly different from any other American. To illustrate this, Fauset creates characters such as Dr. Stephen Denleigh (whom Laurentine eventually marries) and Mrs. Ismay and Mrs. Brown, wives of prominent physicians, who enjoy the leisurely pursuits of bridge and whist and travel to Newark or Atlantic City to view moving pictures or to shop. There are also their offspring, children who attend private schools, enjoy winter sports, and have servants. Fauset’s characters are not very different in their daily lives from financially comfortable whites.

Fauset’s characters experience the joys and sorrows of love. Sarah’s and Colonel Halloway’s was a forbidden love; they were denied marriage because of the times in which they lived. He could not marry Sarah, but Colonel Halloway provided a comfortable home for Sarah and Laurentine. Although Laurentine experiences rejection by her first suitor, she attains love and happiness after she learns to accept herself. Melissa, who cannot marry Malory, is loved by Asshur Lane, someone she initially rejects because he aspires to be a farmer. Fauset argues that the African American is “endowed with the stuff of which chronicles may be made.” In this novel Fauset addresses issues of identity in terms of race and social standing amid the disorder of her characters’ daily lives.

Bibliography

Carby, Hazel V. Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Argues that black women novelists have used their works to address major political and social issues and, in the process, redefined the black woman. Views Fauset as somewhat conventional and argues that The Chinaberry Tree is often chaotic.

Christian, Barbara T. Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. A seminal discussion of black women’s fictional narrative. Considers the obstacles black women writers face as well as the particular themes and issues they address. Fauset is considered a key player of the Harlem Renaissance movement and a major black woman writer, even though some of her themes are not as aesthetically challenging as those of her contemporary Nella Larsen.

Harker, Jaime. America the Middlebrow: Women’s Novels, Progressivism, and Middlebrow Authorship Between the Wars. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007. Focuses on the importance of reading Fauset as a middlebrow author and discusses the interrelationship of progressivism and sentimentalism in her work.

McDowell, Deborah E. “The Neglected Dimension of Jessie Redmon Fauset.” In Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction, and Literary Tradition, edited by Marjorie Pryse and Hortense J. Spillers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. Argues that there is more to Fauset’s works than is apparent from their preoccupation with traditional romance and their conventional endings.

Ransom, Portia Boulware. Black Love and the Harlem Renaissance—The Novels of Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Zora Neale Hurston: An Essay in African American Literary Criticism. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005. Discusses Fauset’s representation of intimacy and the function of love in the literature of the Harlem Renaissance generally.

Shockley, Ann Allen. Afro-American Women Writers, 1746-1933. New York: Meridian, 1988. Presents a comprehensive discussion of Fauset’s life and an overview of her literary works.

Tomlinson, Susan. “An Unwonted Coquetry: The Commercial Seductions of Jessie Fauset’s The Chinaberry Tree.” In Middlebrow Moderns: Popular American Women Writers of the 1920’s, edited by Lisa Botshon and Meredith Goldsmith. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003. Discusses the representation of consumption, gender, and middle-class consumer culture in The Chinaberry Tree.

Washington, Mary Helen. “’The Darkened Eye Restored’: Notes Toward a Literary History of Black Women.” In Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Meridian, 1990. Shows how black women writers often respond to one another in their works.